September 28, 2007

Judith Warner responds to the critics of her "Thelma and Louise" column -- which we discussed here, and has not one word to say about President Clinton. She says she was "quite shocked" at the response, but that what mostly surprised her was the reaction to the statistics showing a decline in the incidence of rape. Remember, she consigned the movie to the past: It no longer speaks to us, because the statistics show there's less rape than there was back then.

Most respondents felt the number was suspect. Some felt that I was being duped; others that I was naïve about the impossibility of gathering meaningful hard data on what remains, for the most part, a “silent” crime. Yet others still, I sensed, felt something more: that my mere mention of the number, and the great progress for women that I read into it, was a slap in the face to rape victims, a denial of their suffering, a Katie Roiphe-like brush-off of the tragic reality of their experience.

How could that response have surprised her? But it did. And she genuflects at length to those who gasped at her cheery citation of statistics.

But there isn't one word about what I thought separates us from the era of "Thelma and Louise":

What happened was that the Democratic President Bill Clinton got into trouble for sexual harassment, and those who had worked so hard for so many years to bring the subject of sexual violence and sexual harassment to the front of the national consciousness did a turnaround to preserve partisan power.

Warner does see fit to bring up Clarence Thomas:

[T]here still is a consensus right now among people who track the statistics that rape and sexual assault are on the decline. Sexual harassment complaints to the EEOC spiked following the Clarence Thomas hearings and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which made it possible for plaintiffs bringing harassment suits to win compensatory and punitive damages in addition to back pay. Then the volume of claims flattened around the turn of the millennium and is now slightly in decline. Is this because of changed behavior, company crackdowns or fear of retaliation for complaining? The EEOC doesn’t have the data to say.

Hmmm.... so complaints spiked because of the Clarence Thomas hearings, but then flattened and declined. Warner speculates that men got the message about what they can and can't get away with. Maybe so. But as long as you're bringing up Thomas, you'd better bring up that other figure in the history of sexual harassment, Bill Clinton. Speculate about the effect he had. Maybe women got a message too.

ADDED: I just noticed that the column Warner wrote just before her "Thelma and Louise" column was about Bill Clinton's sex life. She wrote about how it made Hillary look:

As for Hillary – contemplating the Sarkozys this summer drove home to me the gender-bending aspect of her own unfortunate personal history. A formidable woman of real power and prestige, she emerged from the Monica affair much more cuckold than cuckquean. Her husband’s perfidy did, in a sense, disturb the natural order of things; in the post-feminist age, women like Hillary are not supposed to be subject to such indignities.

Hillary has never been, as she herself once put it, “some little woman standing by my man.” Perhaps that’s what made the spectacle of her public humiliation so unique and so unsettling and, ultimately, so unforgivable for the many women who came away from it all despising her.

I think I now understand that particular aspect of the Clinton conundrum in a way I never did before. It comes down to this: nobody likes a cuckold.

There are so many things wrong with that. I'll just point out the most obvious one: the Monica Lewinsky scandal increased Hillary's popularity.

139 comments:

In what way is Hillary formidable? Only in the sense that the chattering class has decided on her as their standard bearer and therefore will not challenge her on shady connections, contradictory statements, incoherent positions taken: in short, on anything.

Another post about Bill Clinton? Oh, that's soooo last century. Still, it's mildly amusing to see Althouse readers slobbering daily about "BDS" while you revisit The Clenis at every opportunity.

If I may, let me correct just one of your errors in this post. Warner writes:

Sexual harassment complaints to the EEOC spiked following the Clarence Thomas hearings and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which made it possible for plaintiffs bringing harassment suits to win compensatory and punitive damages in addition to back pay. Then the volume of claims flattened around the turn of the millennium and is now slightly in decline. Is this because of changed behavior, company crackdowns or fear of retaliation for complaining? The EEOC doesn’t have the data to say.

You then summarize her position in this way:

Hmmm.... so complaints spiked because of the Clarence Thomas hearings, but then flattened and declined.

If you had read carefully what Warner wrote, without the image of The Clenis in your thoughts, you would realize that she does NOT state or imply that complaints spiked because of the Thomas hearings, as you suggest (i.e., there is no claim by Warner of causation). Rather, she identifies a point in time, 1991, after which complaints to the EEOC increased.

You then write:

But as long as you're bringing up Thomas, you'd better bring up that other figure in the history of sexual harassment, Bill Clinton. Speculate about the effect he had.

Shall we call this the Althouse Rule? In the future, whenever anyone wants to discuss sexual harassment, they shall be required to discuss both Clinton and Thomas? Will you promise to abide by the Althouse Rule and henceforth give Clarence Thomas equal time whenever you feel the urge to revisit The Clenis?

I don't think there was anything there to humiliate Hillary. It was Bill who was humiliated - and justly so.

Also humiliated were Reno and Shalala and the other female cabinet ministers that Clinton allowed to trot out to lie in his defense.

But they shouldn't be humiliated because they were duped. Anyone can be duped by a patho like Clinton.

They should be humiliated because once it became clear that they were used to further lies to tarnish Monica Lewinsky, the only person in the whole sordid affair who was telling the truth, none of them had the decency to immediately resign in protest.

I'll just point out the most obvious one: the Monica Lewinsky scandal increased Hillary's popularity.

Really? I've never seen any polls or anything, so I don't know. On a personal note, I remember my mother in the early/mid-nineties thinking the Hillary Clinton was such a neat lady. I think it was in the wake of the Lewinski thing that she started to say things like "I think that Hillary Clinton is kind of a (whisper)bitch." There may be something to "nobody likes a cuckold".

I like the oft-repeated Althouse point about Bill Clinton being completely let off the hook by feminists. It's interesting and plausible that it set back efforts to reduce sexual harrasment/workplace power abuses. How odd that he got he free pass on that, and that more feminists don't remind us of that.

But if you recall the hysteria of that time, with the right demonizing them both for land fraud, cocaine smuggling, and mass murder, it makes a lot more sense. Absent the impeachment hearings and smear campaign against him, I think you would have heard a lot more moral outrage from the left.

Given the amoral attack on all fronts from the right (mostly in the name of morality, but manufactured/engineered for purely political ends), I find it hard to fault leftist feminists for not piling on.

Correct, I think, because it allowed her to be seen by some dim bulbs as a sympathetic figure, something she has done little to refute. Poor poor Hillary, suffering in silence and continuing to stand by her man with such great humility. The feminatzis will see it in a whole other light, of course. And they can all vote.

I don't think there was anything there to humiliate Hillary. It was Bill who was humiliated - and justly so

Throughout her husband's presidency Hillary was the über feminist and the smartest woman who ever walked the face of the earth to boot. And she famously told us all on 60 Minutes in 1992 --in the context of her husband's cheating ways-- that she was "not like Tammy Wynette standing by her man." Then, during the Lewinsky matter she did indeed stand by her man, denying, defending, and enabling. We learned, and were left to conclude, that she probably actually did know then and continues to know about all of Bill's dalliances. Stand by him through it all is exactly what she does. I dunno. In the context of what most of us regard as the basics of traditional marriage, what marriage means or is supposed to mean, I see humiliation in there.

What Warner also ignores is that Hillary has power and prestige because she is the spouse of a powerful, prestigious man. We will never know if she could have done it on her own--and I'm sure she would be successful in some fashion--but she resides in the halls of power now because she is the spouse of a powerful man. She is no Thatcher.

She is a cuckold because that's part of the Faustian bargain, and she knows it, and we know it.

"I'll just point out the most obvious one: the Monica Lewinsky scandal increased Hillary's popularity."

Polling seems to present somewhat divided data on that subject, at least among women.

The more educated and the more professional women are, the less they think of Hillary Clinton.

Anecdotally, this holds true from my observation. Only one woman of my acquaintance likes Hillary Clinton or would consider voting for her. Most regard her as disingenuine. And all regard her sticking with Bill Clinton in spite of his seriated adultery as contemptible.

"Why would I want someone so weak as not to stand up for herself, so ambitious that she willingly accepts constant humiliation, to be my President?" one female friend asked me.

Clinton did get a huge sympathetic bounce following the Monica Lewinsky business.

But at least among some women, Warner's assessment of how Hillary Clinton is regarded holds true.

As to your assessment of Warner's original column on 'Thelma and Louise,' rape, and sexual harrassment, I think that you're absolutely right.

Bill Clinton's escape from consequences for using his power to extract sexual favors from women sent a big message to harrassed and abused women everywhere. The message was, "Shut up and let yourself be victimized."

The former President exhibits many of the characteristics of abusers, whether their abuse is emotional or physical. Most are charmers. Most also see them as victims. And most minimize the extent of their abuses. Mr. Clinton used (abused) a young college intern. He also abused, after many previous instances of abuse, his wife. That sort of lifestyle was seemingly legitimized when people who would have been expected to rail against Mr. Clinton's abusive behavior, instead rallied to support him.

(Another consequence of the Clinton years, and I've seen data to bear this out, is that adolescents believe that oral sex isn't sex. That, you'll remember, was the former President's argument. That little lie has no doubt had a lot to do with an explosion of orally-transmitted STDs.)

Hillary Clinton is a smart woman who knows how power works. But most women I know don't want her to be the first woman President. It's too Eva Peron.

Senator Clinton received kudos during the debate the other night for responding to Tim Russert's quote of her husband that she, not he, was the one standing onstage. A bold thing for her to say in light of the fact that she very likely wouldn't be standing on that stage were it not for her husband and her willingness to accede to a lifetime of emotional abuse.

Had Hillary Rodham never met Bill Clinton and instead, returned to Illinois following law school, she might well have gone into politics on her own. She might well be contending for the presidency on the strength of her own resume today. But that's not the path her life took and not how she ended up on that stage. Given the pathway she's taken, most women I know, even those who agree with her on most issues, have no interest in seeing her become President.

I don't think cuckold is the correct term for Hillary's actions as regards her husband's dalliances. A cuckold derives pleasure from the humiliation, Hillary, at least as I see it, tolerates it because she wants the power that comes from Team Clinton. A cuckold is more cooperative, than tolerant.

Doyle: one option is to not come by so often, that way you can control the frequency. She is, after all, a certain nominee, and very possible president. I think you would have wanted as much an examination of GWB in 1999 and 2000. All these little things do matter.

I've never associated a blow job with abuse. Now a non-consensual blow job of course. If you take this position, then you must accept it as fact that a woman has no control over her mind or her body with men. Hardly a feminist position, is it?

Yes, Steve R, on both accounts about Hill and Doyle :), and good comment, Mark Daniels.

Count me among the women who believe Hillary has known about each and every one of Bill's dalliances all along, but esp. in the Governor's Mansion and White House. She's not dumb and has her eyes-and-ears allies to clue her in. But her act on the Today show re Monica and the "hateful, lying Vast Rightwing Conspiracy that was trying to frame poor Bill" was enough in and of itself to disqualify her, in my mind, for any office. Well, that, and her Leftist ideological tendencies (slightly camouflaged these days b/c enough of America knows we're at war.)

This post wasn't about Hillary, it was about Bill. And I think ample due diligence has been performed on Bill.

As for examination of candidates' backgrounds, I actually don't think the press did a bad job in presenting GWB's. It wasn't that voters didn't know he spent most of his adult life as a drunken failure (before becoming a sober failure) it's that they didn't care, or they found it endearing.

"But if you recall the hysteria of that time, with the right demonizing them both for land fraud, cocaine smuggling, and mass murder, it makes a lot more sense."

Hysteria? I remember that time and those of us on the right laughed at those insane conspiracy weirdo's. At the time, I thought it was a satire of the black helicopter/UN takeover/presidental elections canceled fears about President GHW Bush. Now that I am older, I understand that some people are just fricken nuts. That kind of talk was no where even closing approaching the far reaches of mainstream. Unlike the Bushitler, 9-11 was an inside job crap.

And all regard her sticking with Bill Clinton in spite of his seriated adultery as contemptible.

I have to say this viewpoint baffles me. I don't think I'd stay with an unfaithful husband/wife. But I don't know. I suspect that until it happens to you, you can't know. But to judge so harshly someone who does stay is just weird.

"It wasn't that voters didn't know he spent most of his adult life as a drunken failure (before becoming a sober failure) it's that they didn't care, or they found it endearing."

How's your MBA coming along? Which state are you governor of again? What year can we expect to see President Doyle? I can fully understand disagreement with any particular politicians viewpoints. But this personal hatred over said viewpoints is insane.

I just said he was a drunken failure, which are factual statements if you look at his admitted alcoholism, the failure of his various oil ventures, or even the record of the Texas Rangers while he was an owner.

And, never having been governor of Texas, I never had anyone executed and then joked and bragged about it.

Now Davy Johnson was a big time drunk, and seemed to do pretty good. Doc and Darryl enjoyed a snort or two as well. They were winners. But they were black and that's why the Met fans hated them so much. You can search far and wide and never a more racist asshole than a Met Fan from Long Island.

Hillary! is trying mightily to shore up her resume' by implying that her experience as first lady during Bill's term is fully transferable executive experience. The purpose, of course, is to set her apart from other Senators whose Senate experience is at least the equal of hers.

So long as this is an unspoken but very real part of her campaign message, it is perfectly legitimate to comment on the somewhat bizarre relationship that is the Hill/Bill marriage.

As to the Lewinsky affair as sexual harrassment, there is one point that has been largely ignored. That is the effect on the rest of the young female employees in the White House.

Lewinsky's situation proved that one way to "get ahead" on the President's staff was to give him head in the oval office.

This type of activity (known as quid pro quo has long been held to violate Title VII as unlawful sexual harrassment

Whether the Lewinsky/Clenis tryst was consensual is immaterial to this type of case.

You had to listen to sports radio when Omar Minaya came in and started importing a lot of Latin players. Sitting in a bar listen to a Met's fans bullshit; they complain about two things. The Yankees spent too much money and the Mets have two many Spanish guys. When I bust their balls and tell them that Mets stands for My Entire Team Sucks.......they reply that Mets really stands for My Entire Teams Spics....nice isn't it. (sorry for the racial invective, just for educational purposes).

I have to say this viewpoint baffles me. I don't think I'd stay with an unfaithful husband/wife. But I don't know. I suspect that until it happens to you, you can't know. But to judge so harshly someone who does stay is just weird.

You're right, you're not getting it. The staying part of it by itself isn't the problem. It's the public denying, the public enabling, and the role in in targeting and taking out the "bimbos" when it the truth of it all is abundantly clear all who choose to see it. All that.

But study upon study indicates that vulnerable people or impressionable people can be manipulated by those with power. There's a difference between consensual sex between people and sex that happens between a person who, consciously or otherwise, uses their position of power to leverage sexual favors. That's the very nature of much of sexual harrassment.

Given our collective experience during the Clinton Co-Presidency Version 1.0, the prospective Version 2.0 release pretty much guarantees the Clenis is going to keep coming up. Just like the Energizer Bunny in reverse.

"Now a non-consensual blow job of course. If you take this position, then you must accept it as fact that a woman has no control over her mind or her body with men."

This doesn't square with much of the (feminist supported) movement to say that it is sexual harassment for a boss to get a bj from a subordinate due to the fact that the woman may feel pressured by the professional relationship.

I mean, she could consent, but was that consent freely given or was it because she felt that if she didn't, her career might suffer?

Further, if it was accepted that the woman had the onus of saying no, that women would have to deal with being put into that uncomfortable position (of deciding to consent or not) significantly more often than if it was considered unacceptable. And cretins would have cover, saying that any pressure she felt professionally was merely misunderstood.

I think we had swung the pendulum too far towards demonizing bosses and to making it so that people had to worry about their conduct too much. But there was a valid reason for those pushes, and overall I think things have gotten better.

But Clinton definitely got some people who had been advocates against the very type of behavior he exhibited to suddenly go mute or even defend him. His whole affair may have been the impetus that swung the pendulum back towards reasonableness, even if it (thankfully) did not swing all the way back to the way things used to be.

Though, to vnjagvet's original point, that's a long way from proving "that one way to get ahead on the President's staff was to give him head in the oval office" which would require Clinton's personal intervention in Lewinsky's career, and the knowledge of others that this was occurring. Neither of which has ever been demonstrated.

I suspect that it was pretty obvious that although Monica was brunette, she was Bill's proverbial "fair haired girl" on the staff.

I'm doubtful. If it was so obvious, I would imagine at least some other women in the WH would have surfaced to reveal their knowledge of it during that time. I suspect he managed to be fairly discreet about the whole thing.

This would probably be enough under the quid pro quo theory of sexual harrassment.

I'm no lawyer, so I don't know much about the legal requirements. But doesn't there have to be some element of coercion or promise of advancement? (I don't mean physical coercion.) Did "that woman, Ms. Lewinsky," ever claim that it was anything other than consensual, or that she did it because she considered it necessary for her career?

For the record, I was quite troubled by the obvious power imbalance in this sexual relationship. Though I don't know whether or not it actually was sexual harassment. Is every incident of sexual conduct between people at vastly different levels of an organization sexual harassment? And if not, then what about this relationship makes it that?

"Is every incident of sexual conduct between people at vastly different levels of an organization sexual harassment?"

I believe that this has been one of Althouse's points over the past few years. At the time, there were many feminist leaders who were saying not only this, but that it did not to be vastly different levels, just different levels.

Darkbloom: President Clinton's close friend and advisor Vernon Jordan arranged for Monica Lewinsky to have some interviews with Young & Rubicam, MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings and American Express as well. Here's a timeline, courtesy of WaPo.

Over the past 20 years, the cases defining sexual harrassment have multiplied.

These cases developed the concept of "hostile environment" sexual harrassment. They hold that executives having sexual relations with their subordinates (with or without consent) is evidence of a workplace hostile to the gender of the subordinates.

Also, a hostile environment is created when it appears to other employees that an employee's sexual favors are traded for some favored treatement in the workplace.

I think most objective people would conclude that the activities in the oval office could have given rise to at least a charge of sexual harassment under these cases.

btw, that timeline, ugh. I feel for the person who had to write it, and admire his/her attempts to relieve the tedium by using the various expressions "sexual encounter," "sexual rendezvous," and "sexual liaison." (or are those technical terms whose intracacies escape me?)

Monica did have designs on POTUS [she talked about her "presidential kneepads."] BUT, he and she sexualized the workplace in a way that gave her more access, more benefits, and, arguably, made the environment less hospitable to non-blow-job-performing interns or other employees.

Ralph: Last I knew, rock stars didn't employ their groupies. That's not a workplace.

An organization. A group. Let's call them "The Three Muskateers". But one of the Muskateers leaves the group, leaves the other two in the lurch.

Even in the most amicable of separations, there's always stress.

Did the Muskateer who voluntarily left... understand the kind of stress he put on the group with his departure?

The separation anxiety, issues of aBANDonment, a broken committment, and why join in the first place if you knew you were just going to up and leave ??? To join is like making a sacrement---taking an oath.

To leave your fellow members in the lurch, like that----of course they aren't going to say anything---they're Guys! Guys don't express hurt feelings. It's not like the whole group was going to go into therapy together to get over the loss....even though they are still reeling from the chaos his leaving threw them into.

I have to say this viewpoint baffles me. I don't think I'd stay with an unfaithful husband/wife. But I don't know. I suspect that until it happens to you, you can't know.

Staying with someone who cheats on you once... ok. I would never do that, but I can see why some people would, especially if they had kids.

But staying with someone who cheats on you over... and over... and over... and has you go on international TV and make an ass out of yourself defending him? After the kids are grown and out of the house? Any woman who sticks by a man who acts that way is either mentally defective (think most of Jerry Springer's guests) or unwilling to give up the benefits the marriage is giving her (think Carmella Soprano).

Hillary's obviously in the second category and people know it. She needs to be Bill Clinton's wife, because nobody would have dreamed of electing her Senator, let alone President, if she wasn't.

M. Simon, with all the publicity, it is hard to believe, but I guess we're getting better at catching the repeat offenders and putting them away. I didn't see if that site included rapes in prison, which certainly would swell the numbers of rapes, if not rapists.

My guess is that today there are many more times the number of rapists in prison than there were in 1973 (in proportion to the size of the overall population of prisoners then and now).

The other major factor is that there are fewer young men, and fewer young women, per capita. Rape is almost always a crime of sexual desire, rather than (as feminists typically claim) a crime of hatred against women. Rape victims are overwhelmingly women in their sexual prime, and rapists are overwhelmingly men in THEIR sexual prime. So as the population ages, rape declines -- because the average woman is less sexually attractive, and the average man less sexually aggressive.

The same aging of the population is responsible for much of the drop in other violent crimes -- and for much of the increase in health care expenses, too.

Cyrus, don't give me a shout out and I will be happy to do the same. I am perfectly happy in my own little world as you are in yours. Let’s split it up, you can specialize in inane political commentary and I will stick to oblique pop culture quotations. To each his own.

I wonder if Althouse and Tonya had a falling out ?? I always go over the Althouse Blogroll with a fine-tooth-comb to find out who's in, and who's out, and the omission of Tonya's blog is rather glaring considering her vaulted (vaunted?) status around here for many years.

I guess it must be quite a delicate balancing act to stay in Althouse's good graces, before she yanks you off her Blogroll ???

I really don't know what the explanation is for Tonya, but unless I hear something soon, my "vivid" imagination is running full force.

Yes indeed. A good sandwich, a cold microbrew, friendly knockers (darling wife in my instance) and a good ball game on the telly beats the tedious and tenditious Clinton obession any time, and this evening in particular.

Hand cut pastrami on chewy dark rye with a stout mustard, a side of Kettle Chips and a cold Sprecher Double India Pale Ale are on the table; baseball is on the tube and (discretion requires that I not describe the balance).

Michael H you gotta multi-task dude. But I really hope to meet the Brewers in the series sometime. Harvy's Wallbangers were one of the most fun teams of all time. Gorman Thomas, my kind of ballplayer. When you go to Yankee Staduim, you have to drink a beer, eat a hot dog, watch the game, fight with the guy next to you and squeeze your honey all at the same time. Multi-task, baby, multi-task.

I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin on a dairy farm about 10 miles from Madison.

When I was 14 I went to my first gay bar, it was called Going My Way-how gay-in Madison. The building is still there, it is right off th square. It has 3 levels and I was in heaven.

By the time I was 16 I got bored with Going My Way and Madison and I started driving to Chicago to go out. 3 hours there and 3 hours back.

By the time I was 17 I knew I wanted to leave the midwest.

I moved to Boston when I was 17 and went to college. I graduated when I was 21 and moved to San Francisco. I lived in San Francisco for 5 years and then moved to NYC . I worked out of my companies London office for 1 year and then went back to school to get my MBA back in Boston. After which I returned to NYC.

When I was a little boy I went hunting with my dad and his buddies. Deer hunting. I was 7 or 8. I could barely carry the rifle and didn't shoot it. I just shot some clay pigeons.

My dads best friend, who was also the cook on those trips, repeatedly raped me from the time I was 7 until 10. I never told my dad. The other guys would go out hunting in the morning and he would stay back and make breakfast and I would stay back and he would rape me. I never told my father. My father's deer hunting friend is still alive and they still go hunting every year. I seem him sometimes when I go home.

Definitely, that's just disgruntled assholes like Sheffield and what’s his name the centerfielder, Kenny Lofton. Ever since George bought the team, it's been basically led by great black and Latin players. Jeter, Bernie, Mariano, and Posada are the heart and soul of the team and true Yankees. Some guys don't understand why they were on seventeen teams, it's always somebody else's fault. I loved those Brewer teams and thought they really represented the American league. It's a shame that the corrupt bargain put you guys in the senior circuit; let's hope we see you in the series soon.

When I moved to San Francisco it was the height of AIDS and death. Everywhere you looked you were surrounded by death. There was no hope then, no antivirals, no chronic disease. Only preparation for death. I saw men walking around that looked like skeletons everywhere. Being pushed in wheel chairs, having KS all over their body. The images will forever be ingrained in my mind.

It was devastating. I was 21 years old and felt like I was looking at my future. I remember Act Up and Queer Nation and Larry Kramer screaming in the streets. I remember die ins in the city where everyone would fall over.

I was horrified. I was scared to make friends with anyone and petrified to actually try to develop a relationship.

Many of these men were very young. I would read the obituaries in the gay newspaper every week and there would be literally hundreds of names. Some famous, most not, most young.

I met someone that I fell in love with who was HIV positive. We did not have a phsical relationship. He was 25, I was 23. I cared for him until he died. He developed dementia and went blind. I remember onc time we were in a grocery store and he started running all over the place because he thought he was being chased by birds. He ended up developing all kinds of horrible diseases. KS-cancer, some disease that generally birds or cats only get, dementia and pneumonia. When I met him he was a beautiful rugged man. When he died he weighed 67 pounds and was 6'2. His family never came to the funeral. They didn't talk to him. I didn't think I would be able to go on with my life. I was a wreck. I didn't have sex for 5 years.

Everyone of my friends that I did meet from San Francisco at that time are dead, with the exception of one. He is what they call a "long term progressor". It means that he has the virus but it doesn't progress. He has had the same t cell count and same viral load since he as diagnosed in 1993. He has never taken any medication. He is an exception and unique. He has been on many studies to determine why he hasn't progressed. So far they still haven't been able to determine why he didn't progress and most others did.

During the Virginia Tech ordeal, a little Birdie told me that some of the Virginia Tech students and victims came to the Althouse blog, seeking tea and sympathy, aid and comfort.

And, you know...they may have very well gotten it, but not from Althouse herself. It took Althouse exactly 4 3/4 hours to come up with a generic statement addressing the Virginia Tech tragedy. It didn't really hit the spot, and really wasn't what those Virginia Tech students and victims wanted, or expected to hear from a woman who works with students, and... we all would have thought---could come up with something a little with a little more inspiration and wisdom.

But, you know, Althouse doesn't believe she needs to do anything more than provide a forum---provide a space for people to come. She doesn't feel she needs to put herself out, or extend herself in any other way.

I went to over 50 funerals of friends of mine before I reached the age of 30. Bi-weekly one of them would die and I would receive a call.

I was spent. I stopped talking to people, going out, or doing anything. I would stay in my apartment and just cry.

The worst part was how horrible the deaths were. It was a slow steady downward spiral.

It might be one disease, then overcoming that and some other f'up disease that hardly anyone ever heard of, then cancer, then pneumonia, then blindness, then dementia, then MAC-micro aviam complex-the bird disease. Constant diarahhea, night sweats, hallucinations, weight loss, kidney failure, vomiting. It never stopped. It was the most wretched thing I had ever seen.

Words are inadequate and expressions of sympathy would seem trite. Emotion so raw and heartfelt are difficult to see, let enough cogently respond to. But there is still the possibility of love in this world, and the expression of such love can never be devalued. No one can feel the burdens of another heart, we can only wish you well on your journey and pray that you find peace and contentment and the solace of another who will take the love you have to give and can respond in kind, and be kind and that it will be the kind of love that can help you find peace. Peace be on to you on your journey, you have really just started, have hope, you may find what you are seeking in a hard and unforgiving world.

The Maxine tedium, however, is getting, well, tedious. It's sort of like watching that guy at the Waffle House at 3:00 am. Crazy muttering, sudden lurches. You don't know what his next move is going to be but you fear it's going to be in your direction.

Creepy, that's the word. And pitiful, too. Maybe it's more like seeing a dog after it's been hit by a car. It's all bewildered and snaps at anyone coming near. Finally, it drags itself off into the bushes to die. Maxine can't seem to find the bushes.

"Rape is almost always a crime of sexual desire, rather than (as feminists typically claim) a crime of hatred against women."

Where did you get this information? Are you telling me that there are normal and well adjusted men out there who can't or refuse to control their natural sexual desires to the point that they would actually FORCE themselves on a female who was unwillng? I have personally known a few scum bags who have committed rape... and trust me, they indeed HATED or at the very least irrationally resented women in general. Of course though, you did stipulate "almost always".

Feminists invented the idea of "rape as hate crime" because it fit their overall "men vs. women" worldview. There was never any evidence to support it, and the demographics of rape correlate very strongly with the demographics of fertility and peak sexual attractiveness. Ugly old women virtually never get raped.

Are you telling me that there are normal and well adjusted men out there who can't or refuse to control their natural sexual desires to the point that they would actually FORCE themselves on a female who was unwillng?

I would say that a man who can't control his sexual impulses is by definition not "well adjusted". But the point is that they are SEXUAL impulses -- the rapist is, with rare exceptions, motivated by a desire for sex, not by hatred of women.

trust me, they indeed HATED or at the very least irrationally resented women in general.

Your subjective interpretations of your personal experiences, while meaningful to you, are of no real value as evidence.

Looks like the O's bunted the Yankees out of the playoffs last night just like the Padres did to the Brewers. Condolences to you.

Dang pitching staff! The Brewskis led the division by 14 games mid-season, but weak pitching sent them into a late season spiral. I dunno, maybe I'll wear my Cubbies cap for a few weeks.

Don't you think it rude and low class when someone who has been invited into another person's home and made to feel welcome then spends time speaking in a shrewish and derogatory manner about the hostess? If it were my home I'd not invite that person back again.

Titus,Your story is quite sad. Such violence at a young age is devastating. A good friend of mine in high school was similarly assaulted. As an adult, he attempted suicide 5 times. What can one say or do about such a crime? Nothing is sufficient.

Maxine, discompassionate as she was here, is right about one thing. it is liberating to realize that all of us suffer, and though the burden is unduly heavier on some than others (and some of us cause it), we share that experience.

It is the core question of adulthood, as I see it: how do we manage our suffering? Answering that has been the basis of religions and philosophy. Biographies also address it. So there we best turn for the answers as others have arrived at them. CS Lewis wrote quite well about it, as did Marcus Aurelius, whose Meditations are remarkably useful in these times.

Trooper is on a roll. The above quote is matched by "Let’s split it up, you can specialize in inane political commentary and I will stick to oblique pop culture quotations. To each his own." for hilarious ferocity.

"Don't you think it rude and low class when someone who has been invited into another person's home and made to feel welcome then spends time speaking in a shrewish and derogatory manner about the hostess? If it were my home I'd not invite that person back again."---Michael_H

A guest enters the hostess's home and talks about being raped at 7-years-old.

Shouldn't the hostess call the police and report the crime? What kind of a hostess ignores a rape? I keep waiting for Althouse to say, or do something. Some kind of a response.

Tick-tock.

But that's right....keep blame evil Maxine, that way Althouse doesn't have to take any responsibility.

"Shouldn't the hostess call the police and report the crime? What kind of a hostess ignores a rape?"

If the hostess isn't in the room, another responsible adult should call the police. No phone, Maxine?

The metaphor is so striking. "We see a tragedy. Let's do nothing. The government (Ann) should do everything. When the government isn't here immediatly, let's criticize the government. But let us as individuals never do anything."

Revenant: I understand where you are coming from... and would agree that rape almost always occurs as a result of sexual desire. But most all people have sexual desires, and the vast majority of said people do not go around forcing themselves on other folks. So, it seems to me that only those who carry around a lot of hate or resentment are capable of losing control of their sexual desires to the point of forcing themselves on someone. Just my own personal and "subjective" opinion. Thanks for the detailed response :-).

zzRon, I think we're basically on the same page here, but I don't think you quite understood my original remark.

It was, and for the most part still is, a widely held belief by feminists that rape really had nothing to do with sex -- that rapists weren't horny, they just hated women and wanted to subjugate and humiliate them. Whereas in reality rapists are usually just sociopaths looking to get their rocks off, and would be better described as simply indifferent to the fact that this involves humiliating and hurting another person.

Gotcha. I actually like your explanation better than my own ...since I am always intersted in anything that will discredit feminist beliefs ;-).

It seems like power and getting enjoyment out of humiliating others is a key factor though. No? Take for instance the thugs in prison who sexually force themselves on the weaker inmates. Yes, it is sociopathic behavior, but I dont veiw the perpetrators as being indifferent to the well being of their victums. I think they know damned well their actions are causing hurt and humiliation, and this knowledge is a major reason they choose to do what they do in the first place. To think otherwise would make no sense to me. But then again, I am not a sociopath.

Actually, I was slightly wrong. It was the first Pres. Bush who signed the law (after the Thomas hearings) that Pres. Clinton violated. The law Pres. Clinton signed allowed Jones' attorneys to question Pesident Clinton about his sexual history.